Integrative Psychotherapy

At NexusWest, we employ a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches, integrating them to address the specific needs and contexts of our clients. Our integrative model allows us to evaluate clients’ issues and utilize individually-tailored approaches for success.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT (typically pronounced as a word) is a cognitive-behavioral model of psychotherapy. It is an empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behaviour-change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility.

Post Induction Therapy was developed by Pia Mellody to address developmental co-dependence. It is a therapy modality designed to treat the long-lasting effects of childhood trauma and resulting issues in adulthood. Mellody eventually termed “developmental immaturity”. Post Induction Therapy’s intervention strategies originated as a result of the experimental application of strategies developed to treat the ongoing effects of childhood trauma and neglect in adulthood.

Relational Recovery Therapy is an approach devised by Terry Real, MSW/LICSW, following on from his work with couples and families. This approach works to empower and reconnect couples and families through experiencing, understanding, and communicating each person’s reality to the others in the couple and/or family. The approach allows for rapid development of authenticity and healthy intimacy.

Relationship therapy/counselling is the process whereby the parties in a relationship learn to recognize troublesome differences and repeating patterns of distress and to reconcile them or manage them better. The relationship involved may be between members of a couple or family (see also family therapy, below); or between employers and employees in a workplace, or between a professional and a client.

At NexusWest we tend to use a Relational Life Model approach to work with couples, families, and other groups.

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. It emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.

The different schools of family therapy have in common a belief that, regardless of the origin of the problem, and regardless of whether the clients consider it an ‘individual’ or ‘family’ issue, involving families in solutions is often beneficial. This involvement of families is commonly accomplished by their direct participation in the therapy session. The skills of the family therapist thus include the ability to influence conversations in a way that catalyses the strengths, wisdom, and support of the wider system. At NexusWest we use an Integrative approach and the Relational Life Model in family therapy.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of psychotherapy designed to help overcome trauma-related disorders. Traumatic and distressing episodes can overcome the brain’s normal coping mechanisms in the brain and such memories can be stored inappropriately and dysfunctionally.

EMDR aims to reprocess these memories and allow them to be stored more ‘normally’, reducing their effect and allowing the individual to cope with them better.

Music Therapy is an established approach using music to deal with a client’s needs. Creating and appreciating music helps clients develop and music therapy also offers communication channels for those who can find it difficult to express themselves in other ways, particularly for the expression of feelings.

Somatic Experiencing® is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma developed by Dr Peter Levine. It is based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized.

Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with defensive survival behaviours. These mechanisms provide animals with a built-in ’immunity’ to trauma that enables them to return to normal in the aftermath of highly ‘charged’ life-threatening experiences.

Hypnotherapy is a gentle but rapid client-focused therapy that is respectful of the important mind/body connection. The state of hypnosis allows you to feel calm and relaxed and to concentrate intently on a specific memory, thought, sensation or feeling. It is used to help modify unhelpful perceptions, behaviour and emotions.

During treatment, your free will remains intact and you retain full control over your actions. Clinical hypnosis is frequently used in the treatment of emotional and identity issues, such as confidence and self esteem concerns, panic attacks, anxiety, stress, and various phobias. Hypnotherapy can also assist in the effective treatment of depression, sexual issues, addictions and pain management.

Brief Psychotherapy or Brief Therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasises (1) a focus on a specific problem and (2) direct intervention.

In Brief Therapy, the therapist takes responsibility for working more pro-actively with the client in order to treat clinical and subjective conditions faster. It also emphasizes precise observation, utilization of natural resources, and temporary suspension of disbelief to consider new perspectives and multiple viewpoints.

PCT is a form of talk-psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. The goal of PCT is to provide patients with an opportunity to develop a sense of self wherein they can realize how their attitudes, feelings and behaviour are being negatively affected and make an effort to find their true positive potential.

Therapists work to create a comfortable, non-judgmental environment by demonstrating congruence (genuineness), empathy, and unconditional positive regard toward their patients while using a non-directive approach. This aids patients in finding their own solutions to their problems.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy works to reveal the unconscious in an effort to alleviate psychic tension and strain. It relies on the interpersonal relationship between client and therapist more than some other forms of psychotherapy.

This form of therapy tends to be eclectic, taking techniques from a variety of sources, rather than relying on a single system of intervention. It is a focus that has been used in individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, family therapy, and to understand and work in institutional and organisational contexts.

Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual’s experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person’s life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation.

Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy(REBT) focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and enabling people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives. REBT was created and developed by the American psychotherapist, Dr Albert Ellis, who was inspired by many of the teachings of Asian, Greek, Roman and modern philosophers.

REBT uses a four-part approach: “A-B-C-D” (Activating event – Belief – Consequences – Dispute). A form of Cognitive-Bbehavioural therapy (CBT), the approach allows clients to identify triggers and self-beliefs, observe the effects of these on the quality of living, and teaches how to dispute those beliefs that have had a negative impact on their living more fully.

“Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of communication. It is practised by qualified, registered Art Therapists who work with children, young people, adults and the elderly.

“Clients who can use art therapy may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include, for example, emotional, behavioural or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, brain-injury or neurological conditions and physical illness.

“Art therapy may be provided for groups, or for individuals, depending on clients’ needs. It is not a recreational activity or an art lesson, although the sessions can be enjoyable. Clients do not need to have any previous experience or expertise in art”.

From the website of the British Association of Art Therapists, with thanks.